Faculty:

I have just completed reading the student evaluations of faculty for the fall semester. Al Boggess has also read them. It is a daunting task taking many, many hours, but well worth the effort. I will have them distributed to your mailboxes tomorrow.

We have been using the "essay answer" evaluation form for enough time now for me to get an adequate feel for the process. Here is a survey of my impressions, I would like to hear yours.

1. One cannot help but notice the overall positive tone!! I would estimate that at least 80% of the professorial faculty have 80% of the evaluations strongly in favour of their teaching. One sees this in the answers to the "What to improve/change" and "recommend to another student" questions. This is not to say that the remaining 20% of the faculty had poor evaluations, but that the students saw more a mixture of qualities and failings. In many cases they were able to articulate suggestions for improvement in a very constructive and useful way. Indeed, I recall only one faculty member whom the students predominately felt was doing a very poor job in teaching. There was barely a handful that I would not happily show to critical parents.

2. The information content is very high. Even when simply seeking an overall impression there is substantially more available than any amount of statistical tweaking on my part was able to extract from the normative answer form we experimented with. For example, with some teachers it clearly comes out they have a definite style -- say they are very structured and organised, but this trait might also be viewed as inflexibility. As you might expect, some students just love this and gave the instructor rave reviews. Others comment they thought the instructor was good, but did not care for the style and for this reason probably would not recommend him/her. One can easily see that this teacher would not be highly rated overall on the normative questionnaire. However, there are no negative comments of any substance.

3. The issue of grades runs through a sizable proportion of the resoponses. There are several instructors whom the students obviously consider "hard." Yet, one is more likely to see phrases such as "challenging course" rather than "unfair." On the other hand, there were certainly cases where the students saw flaws in the teaching of the course, but admitted the "tests were very straightforward" or "it is easy to make a good grade ..." This correlation between grades and evaluation came out very clearly during the two year experiment with normative forms; it is even more prominent now, More importantly, the statistical relations have been replaced by fairly clear-cut statements.

4. As a general rule, the students are reasonably forgiving for failings such as lack of organisation or boring lectures. They are not so kind to instructors whom they perceive to be unenthusiastic about their teaching, or who are ambivalent whether the students learn or not.

5. Our help sessions and weekly reviews are well received. The most negative comments revolve around how busy they are. In some courses the students are much more aware of the opportunities than in others. We must advertise!

6. The perception of the value of technology varies enormously between different sections. It is very easy to tell those instructors who have managed to integrate the available technology successfully. While students are generally critical of instructors who "overuse" it, the response to those who "underuse" it can be illuminating. Sometimes they point out that lectures/labs/technology were poorly coordinated. In others the students simply see it as an extra burden they have to negotiate. Maybe this is correct. Maybe the students and the instructor are equally in the dark.